Part 7

In a few weeks he went back to England and the next year he returned to Avalon with his wife and all his family except his eldest son Cecilius or Cecil. The hardships of the long, severe winter and the contests with the French convinced Lord Baltimore that the northern province was no place for his colony--the twenty thousand pounds he had spent on it were wasted. He wrote to the king, complaining that “from the middle of October to the middle of May there is a sad fare of winter upon all this land,” and requesting a grant of land in a more genial climate, to which he might remove his colony of forty-six persons. At first he endeavored to obtain territory south of Virginia, but this was opposed by the Virginia Company which claimed the land and said it was about to send colonists thither. Finally it was decided that it would be well to establish an English colony north of Virginia to keep back the Dutch and the French who were settling territory claimed by England. Lord Baltimore received a grant of land on Chesapeake Bay, extending to the Potomac. But this land he was never to settle or even to see. He died in April, 1632. The grant thus devolved on his son Cecil, a young man of twenty-eight, who carried out the plans so dear to his father.

Cecil, who was the real founder of Maryland, never visited the colony; he sent out settlers and supplies under his younger brother, Leonard. Leonard was the first governor of Maryland, as the land was called in honor of the English queen, Henrietta Maria. The charter given Lord Baltimore granted more absolute power than was ever bestowed on any other English colonist in the New World. “Cecilius, Absolute Lord of Maryland and Avalon,” could make peace or war; he had the law-making power also and the people could merely advise and assent or dissent. The only tribute required was the yearly payment of two Indian arrows to the king and of one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the land. As soon as the settlers landed, Leonard Calvert established friendly relations with the Indians whom the Englishmen found to “have generous natures and requite any kindness shown them.” The peaceful relations with these Indians, called “Friend Indians” in later treaties, were never broken.

Sailing up St. Mary’s River, the colonists found a place which pleased them as a site for a settlement. They purchased it from the Indians for “axes, hoes, and cloth.” Here St. Mary’s was built in 1634, on the former site of an Indian village.

From the first the policy of the Maryland colony was “peace, unity, and religious toleration.” Until it was established, there was no place in the English colonies in America where Catholics had religious liberty. In the colony on the Potomac, the Catholics enjoyed the free exercise of their religion and granted to others the same privilege. This religious toleration was secured by law in 1649. It was agreed that “no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be molested in their religion.”

The chief trouble of the Maryland colony in its early days was with William Claybourne, a trader from Virginia who had established a settlement and trading-post on Kent’s Island. This was a part of the territory afterwards granted to Lord Baltimore. After much contention and dissension about the matter, in 1646 Claybourne stirred up a rebellion. Governor Calvert, armed with royal authority, took forcible possession of the island. A few months later Calvert died, having appointed as his successor, Thomas Greene, a Catholic and Royalist.

This “land of the sanctuary,” as Maryland was called, grew in wealth and prosperity. In 1656 Hammond described it for the benefit of home-staying Englishmen: “Maryland is (not an Island as is reported, but) part of that main adjoining to Virginia only separated or parted from Virginia, by a river of ten miles broad, called Patomack River,--the commodities and manner of living as in Virginia, the soil somewhat more temperate (as being more northerly) many stately and navigable rivers are contained in it, plentifully stored with wholesome springs, rich and pleasant soil, and so that its extraordinary goodness hath made it rather desired then envied.”

William Penn

A Famous Quaker

About the middle of the seventeenth century a good deal of attention was attracted in England to the religious sect called Quakers, Professors, Friends, or Children of the Light. One of their ablest exponents was George Fox. He was grave and temperate in life, but so firm that it was said of him, “If George says _verily_ there is no altering him.” “Verily” was the strongest word of assent he permitted himself, obeying literally the Bible command, “Swear not at all.”

The Quakers thought that the Bible only ought to be the rule for men and churches, that there should be no set forms of worship, and that men should pray and preach, not at appointed times, but only as moved by the Spirit. They believed that every man is led by the “inward light,” or the Spirit of God, saying, “He that gave us an outward luminary for our bodies, hath given us an inward one for our minds to act by.” The Quakers refused to pay tithes and taxes to support the established church and, thinking it wrong to fight, they refused to serve in the army. At that time hats were worn indoors as well as out, and men took them off as a token of respect. The Quaker refused to pull off their hats to men of any rank, uncovering only in prayer. “Hat honor was invented by men in the Fall,” they said. These Quakers were recognized by their sober attire,--broad-brimmed hats and sober-colored clothes,--and by their use of “thee” and “thou” and “thine” instead of “you” and “yours.” To use the plural forms in addressing one person, they said, was contrary to grammar, to Biblical usage, and to truth.

When George Fox, a lad of twenty, was preaching this faith, there was born in England one who was to spread it abroad in the New World. This was William Penn. His father, Sir William Penn, was an Admiral in the royal navy and was anxious to see his son master of an estate and a title. All these plans were upset by the son who at twenty-four joined the Quakers. His father summoned him to London to argue with him, but the youth stood firm. He appeared covered before his father. The old Admiral tried to effect a compromise and get him to take off his hat to his father, the king, and the Duke of York, but he refused. He would not yield one point of the Quaker customs, dress, language, or faith. As he would not yield, his father in the end did so, and paid his fines.

The Quakers were so beset at home that Penn and others wished to establish for them a refuge in the New World. Penn became one of the owners of the colony of West New Jersey to which many Quakers went. But he was not satisfied with his partnership here and desired a province and colony of his own. This was not difficult to acquire. King Charles II., who owed Admiral Penn’s estate sixteen thousand pounds, had little gold or silver in his treasury and claimed much land in the New World. He willingly settled his debt by granting William Penn the land west of the Delaware; for this Penn was to pay yearly two beaver skins, and one-fifth of all the gold and silver found in the colony. Penn wished to call this land of woods Sylvania, and the king added to the name that of his old friend, the Admiral, calling it Pennsylvania.

The grant was made in 1680; two years later, in order to have an outlet to the sea, Penn secured a grant of the land which afterwards formed the state of Delaware. The very year that this second grant was made, many Quakers sailed to make their home in the new land. In the fall and winter of 1682, twenty-three ships came, bringing settlers to the Quaker colony. The next year Penn could say, “I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us.” In three years there were more than seven thousand settlers,--English, French, Dutch, Swedes, men of different races and various creeds.

Penn made it from the first a “free colony for all mankind,” assuring the people “You shall be governed by laws of your own making. I shall not usurp the right of any or oppress his person.” He put the government in the hands of a governor and of a council and general assembly chosen by freemen. Laws were passed forbidding drunkenness, dueling, stage plays, and card playing. Death, which was then in England the penalty for theft and many other offences, in Pennsylvania was inflicted only as punishment for wilful murder, according to the law of God, as the Quakers understood it.

Penn founded his colony on principles of peace and fairness to the Indians. Under a great elm-tree at Shakamaxon, afterwards Kensington, he made with the natives, a treaty of peace and friendship “never sworn to and never broken;” the red man was granted equal rights with the white, and they were to be friends “while the creeks and rivers run and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.” The Indians with whom the Pennsylvania colonists were brought in contact were the mild and peace-loving Delawares. Fortunately for the Quakers, the fierce Susquehannocks, beaten by the Five Nations, had six years before gone southward.

Penn laid out the site of a town at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. He named it Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It was laid out with broad fair streets for he wished it to be a “fair and green country town.”

Two years later, Penn sailed back to England to decide a dispute about the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was fifteen years before he revisited his colony. He endeavored to see it governed well, but from a distance this was difficult. There were men hard to control. “For the love of God, me, and the poor country, be not so governmentish, so uneasy, and open in your dissatisfaction,” he wrote.

When Penn returned in 1699 it was with the plan of spending his remaining days in his colony. But two years later he learned that there was a plan afoot to turn his province into a crown territory and he sailed back to England to protect his rights. One matter after another came up to detain him and he remained in England till his death in July, 1718.

James Edward Oglethorpe

The Founder of Georgia

The colony of Georgia was the last founded of the thirteen original colonies. It was established by Oglethorpe, a man of noble birth who was animated by principles of philanthropy and patriotism.

James Edward Oglethorpe was born in London, about 1688. When a youth he entered the army and fought bravely against the Turks for several years. After his return home his attention was attracted and his sympathy aroused by the condition of prisoners in England, especially of poor debtors. In those days debt was regarded and punished as a crime; debtors were confined in prisons with murderers and thieves. It is thought that Oglethorpe’s attention was specially drawn to the matter by the sad case of one of his friends. This man, being unable to pay his debts, was imprisoned and loaded with chains; unable to pay even the fees required by the jailer, he was confined in a miserable prison where smallpox was raging, caught the disease, and died.

Oglethorpe investigated the conditions of prison life in England and found them bad and brutal beyond description. Most of the prisons were filthy dens in which men, women, and children were herded together, the child who had stolen a loaf of bread side by side with a brutal murderer. Oglethorpe brought the subject before parliament and succeeded in having a committee appointed to investigate the matter and take steps to limit the corruption and cruelty of the officials.

Besides attempting to relieve their condition at home, Oglethorpe began to plan an asylum abroad for the poor debtors and for persecuted sects. He wished to establish a place where those who were unfortunate and discouraged could begin life anew. It seemed to Oglethorpe that England would derive many benefits from such a colony as he planned. The country would be relieved of the burden of supporting unfortunate men who there would become self-supporting. New industries might be developed,--especially the culture of silk worms in which he was much interested. He wished to plant this settlement in the southern regions claimed by England, making it a military colony to prevent the encroachments of Spain and to protect the other English colonies.

In June, 1732, Oglethorpe and twenty associates obtained a grant of the land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers and extending westward to the Pacific Ocean, according to the usual terms of the grants of the times. The English claimed this land by virtue of the expeditions of Sir Walter Raleigh and they were desirous to occupy it before it was seized by the Spanish in Florida or the French on the Mississippi. In honor of the reigning King George II., the territory was named Georgia.

Oglethorpe agreed with Bacon that “it is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people whom you plant,” and he tried to select men who were unfortunate rather than wicked. Every opportunity was to be given the people to reform and to build up homes and fortunes. Oglethorpe went as governor of the colony, hoping by his personal aid and supervision to encourage and direct the people.

For military reasons, Oglethorpe urged that negro slavery be prohibited and that rum should not be brought into the colony. Among the men who aided in establishing and directing the colony were John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield, the famous Methodist clergymen.

In the winter of 1733, the colonists reached the New World and selected for their settlement a place on the Savannah River, a few miles from the sea. The Indians were conciliated with gifts and kindly treatment and assurances that their rights should be regarded. One of the desires of the philanthropic Oglethorpe was to civilize and christianize the natives. In six months there were one hundred and fifty persons in the settlement. They were a turbulent people unaccustomed to labor and with habits of improvidence and idleness. Oglethorpe was kind but firm; he allowed no idlers and provided tasks for even the children. Their neighbors in South Carolina were friendly and helpful, and the colony prospered. In the summer of 1734 Oglethorpe visited England, taking with him as guests several Indian chiefs. Early in February, 1736, he returned to Savannah.

Clear-sighted man of affairs that he was, he realized that a contest with Spain must come sooner or later. He endeavored to put the country in a position of defense. When war was declared between England and Spain in 1739, Oglethorpe had already secured the alliance of the Indian tribes. The Spaniards attacked an English settlement, and in return Oglethorpe captured a Spanish outpost. With his Indian allies, he marched against St. Augustine, but it was too strongly defended to be taken by the forces at his command. Two years later the Spaniards attacked Georgia; by a fortunate union of good chance and good generalship, they were defeated. “The pauper colony,” as it had been called, not only defended itself but saved its neighbor, South Carolina.

After this war was over, Oglethorpe returned to England and never again revisited his colony. About ten years later, the trustees of the colony resigned their patent and Georgia became a royal province.

Oglethorpe made his home in London where he was the friend of Walpole, Goldsmith, Johnson, and other famous men. He died at a ripe old age, having lived to see the colony which he had founded win its independence in the War of the Revolution. When John Adams came to England as minister from the United States, Oglethorpe called “to pay his respects to the first American ambassador and his family, whom he was glad to see in England; he expressed a great esteem and regard for America and much regret at the misunderstandings between the countries and felt very happy to have lived to see a termination of it.”

Philip

An Indian King

The Pilgrims were not the first white men who had visited Massachusetts. Explorers and trading parties had landed on the coast. At one time a fishing party had come to trade for furs and skins, and had carried off five Indians, one of whom was Squanto. Later, another vessel carried off twenty-seven Indians. The red men early learned to distrust and fear the pale faces.

The settlers of Plymouth endeavored to win the friendship of the Indians. They presented knives, copper chains, and other trinkets to Massasoit who was sachem, or chief, of the Indian tribes of the neighborhood, and made a treaty of friendship with him. As long as Massasoit lived, the Indians and the English lived in comparative peace.

But year after year the natives and the colonists became less friendly to each other. The white men came in constantly-increasing numbers and occupied the best of the land. When the Indians had sold it for beads or knives or trinkets, they thought that the English wished it for a season’s hunting and fishing. But the English established farms and villages and towns and took permanent possession. Game and fish grew less plentiful and as the English prospered the Indians grew poorer. The Indians resented being treated as an inferior race by the white people. The Pilgrims resented the savages’ lack of regard for property rights, their gathering fruit and grain and shooting cows like deer. The two races were too different to thrive and prosper side by side. Some of the natives adopted the faith of the white men. These “praying Indians,” as they were called, identified themselves to a great extent with the white people and were regarded as traitors to their own race.

However, there was no open outbreak till after the death of Massasoit. The old sachem left two sons whom the English called Alexander and Philip. Alexander, the elder, succeeded his father as sachem. The English suspected that Alexander was plotting with a hostile tribe against them, and they seized him and carried him as a prisoner to Plymouth. Nothing could be proved against him and he was soon released, but on the way home he died--probably of fever. The Indians, however, thought that he had been poisoned by the white men.

Philip succeeded his brother in authority. He was a renowned warrior, as wise and prudent as he was brave. We are told that instead of treating his wife as a slave, according to Indian custom, he made her his friend and companion. Next to his wife and child, Philip loved the people of his tribe. He saw with grief that his people were constantly growing weaker and the English were constantly increasing in numbers and in strength. He protested against the wrongs of the Englishmen but these wrongs were unredressed. Still, we are told, that he did not favor war; he realized that his people were unable to withstand the English and war would only hasten their ruin.

Against the wishes and commands of Philip, war began, brought on by the excesses of bad men on both sides. In June, 1675, some young Indians burned a village and were attacked by the settlers. The aroused savages went from one bloody deed to another, burning houses and villages, murdering men, women, and children. About the time that the war began, Philip crossed Narragansett Bay and went to a tribe in the Connecticut valley. For nearly a year he was not seen by the English, and we do not know to what extent he countenanced and directed the war that was being waged.

The town of Deerfield was burned and Hadley and Hatfield were attacked. While the settlers at Hadley were in confusion, it is said that a venerable old man suddenly appeared and led them forward to repel the foe. When victory was gained, he disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. It was asserted that this was Goffe, one of the men who had sentenced Charles I. to death. When Charles II. became king, Goffe fled to the New World and lived in seclusion in Connecticut. In “The Gray Champion” Hawthorne tells this story with some changes.

The Narragansett Indians went on the war-path against the white men. Their headquarters were on an island in a swamp which was thought to be inaccessible. Here, in five hundred wigwams, were sheltered the women and children of the tribe and were stored their supplies of corn. By the treachery of one of Philip’s warriors, the path to the island was betrayed to the white men. In the depth of winter the colonists made their way through the swamp to the island, killed men, women, and children without mercy, and burned the fort and the whole settlement. King Philip’s wife and son had been taken prisoners and sent to the Bermudas where they were sold as slaves. Still the Indians refused to submit. One of the warriors who advised surrender was killed by King Philip’s own hand. At last in August, 1676, he was surrounded at his old home, Mount Hope, not far from Providence, Rhode Island, and was shot. His body was cut to pieces and fastened on trees, and his head was exposed on the top of a pole in Plymouth. The Puritans held a thanksgiving to celebrate their victory in King Philip’s War. The inevitable conflict between the white men and the red had come and the whites were the victors. But nearly one-tenth of the fighting force had been killed, and there was hardly a village or even a home in New England which had not suffered loss.

Nathaniel Bacon

The Leader of the Great Rebellion

It was not only with outsiders--French, Dutch, Spaniards, and Indians--that the English settlers had trouble. One faction in the colonies warred against another. In Virginia the established order was almost overthrown in the seventeenth century by the “Great Rebellion.”

For many years the governor of the colony was Sir William Berkeley, an aristocrat who would not allow the people to have any share in the government of the colony. He feared that if the House of Burgesses was dismissed and new members elected he would lose control of it. So he adjourned it from one session to another, and year after year called together men whom he could trust to obey his will. A very stubborn and overbearing will it was, opposed to all progress and firmly set against granting rights to common people. He approved of high taxes and did not wish the common people to vote; above all, he opposed public education and the liberty of the press. “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing presses,” he said in 1671, “and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years.”

There were now about forty thousand people in Virginia, many of whom had been born and reared there. For the most part, they disapproved of Berkeley’s high-handed course and of his disregard of the rights and privileges of the colonists. But he was the lawful governor and they were loyal, law-abiding people; probably they would have gone on submitting and grumbling had it not been for the Indian attacks and Governor Berkeley’s failure to protect the outlying settlements. Fierce Indian tribes from Pennsylvania had come south; they were now on the borders of the Virginia colony--murdering, burning, and pillaging, making life and property unsafe. In the spring of 1676 the House of Burgesses voted to send five hundred men to protect the frontiers, but instead of ordering them to march Berkeley disbanded the little army.

There was at this time in Jamestown an Englishman as brave and resolute as Berkeley himself and as devoted to the rights of the people as Berkeley was to those of the king. This was Nathaniel Bacon. He had been in Virginia only a few months, but he was so popular and so talented that soon after his arrival he was chosen a member of the governor’s council.